13 ms·

Tangential question, what are the areas of technology where we can expect to see substantial progress or breakthroughs within 2030, i.e. what are the most excit

• TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
  Delivery drones: Wing, Amazon, Zipline, Volansi, etc. Synthetic fuels.
• gfodor 5y ago
  - Psychadelics - VR/AR (photonic override, more specifically) - Fundamental physics (unlocked by tech)
  • tlrobinson 5y ago
    Can you elaborate on “photonic override”? Googling that phrase pretty much just returns more HN comments and tweets by you :)
    • gfodor 5y ago
      A hardware/software proxy that governs all photons you see.
      • walleeee 5y ago
        This is desirable?
        • throwaway6977 5y ago
          Certainly for someone with defective default hardware ;)
          • walleeee 5y ago
            I certainly see the utility there!
        • relaxing 5y ago
          Look into “diminished reality” - the ability to block things out that would be a distraction, for instance.
        • gfodor 5y ago
          Desirable or not is subjective, but what's not as subjective is the liklihood of this technology stack arriving and becoming popular, which seems very likely/guaranteed at this point.
          • walleeee 5y ago
            it does seem likely to arrive but whether it becomes popular more difficult to predict as it's conditioned on the sway of public opinion, which seems heterogeneous regarding AR/VR
• teryyy 5y ago
  Synthetic meat of all kinds, ARM based processors, deep learning + AI, agtech/vertical farming/etc.
  • mhh__ 5y ago
    > ARM based processors Compared to most of the other things listed, this is more of a nerd-aestheticism thing rather than something which is hugely important technologically.
    • wyre 5y ago
      But haven’t ARM based processors put already computers in billions of peoples hands that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access otherwise? I could argue that is hugely important.
      • samus 5y ago
        ARM is merely a commercially successful microarchitecture that turned out to be good at being optimized for mobile application.
      • mhh__ 5y ago
        The ARM revolution has already happened, in this case I viewed the mention to be more of a wishlist for the types of computers the global well-off buy.
• paxys 5y ago
  Sadly I'd also qualify most of these as things that consumers are overly excited about but will never reach their expected potential (at least in our lifetimes) due to technological limits. Same as flying cars, 3D TVs, 3D printing, household robots, holograms, AR glasses.
  • gfodor 5y ago
    AR glasses will hit a wall but passthrough AR will be converged on rapidly. Starting 2022
    • oezi 5y ago
      Any particular insight why 2022? Hololens 2 has shown that it isn't so easy to advance the field. I don't think an Apple device is forthcoming or likely to leapfrog.
      • alasdair_ 5y ago
        > Any particular insight why 2022? Facebook, Apple and others are releasing their first AR glasses then.
        • m0zg 5y ago
          And there will be approximately zero non-gimmick software for them until at least 2032, if it ever materializes at all.
          • gfodor 5y ago
            AR "FaceTime" (beaming in an avatar of another person to spend time with) will be a killer app.
            • m0zg 5y ago
              But you aren't "spending time" with that person. You're spending time with that person's poorly rendered avatar. You can't even hear them properly. You can't see them at all. You can't touch them or read a lot of the nonverbal cues. And for the privilege of not being in their presence, you also need to pay several hundred (if not thousands, this being Apple) dollars, and both sides need to use Apple products. I very strongly suspect that all but the most ardent Apple fans will pass on this generous offer.
• api 5y ago
  I'd say fusion is a sleeper. You still have that stupid "30 years away and always will be" meme but there is real progress being made. Fusion would completely change the world, though not overnight because it would take another decade or so before it would advance enough to be cost competitive. I'm semi-optimistic about space flight and longevity. I think Starship will fly, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of its most ambitious specs get dialed back a bit. I'll be somewhat (but not totally) surprised if the "chopsticks" idea works. We will probably see aging-reversal to some limited extent within 10-20 years, but the effect will probably be more to extend "health span" than add that much to life span. (I'll take it.) I'll add one not on the list: the use of deep learning to discover theories in areas like physics and math that have not occurred to humans and maybe are not capable of being found by ordinary human cognition. Wildcard, but plausible: detection of a strong extrasolar biosphere candidate using JWST or another next-generation telescope. Detection would be based on albedo absorption spectra, so we wouldn't know for sure. Talk of an interstellar fly-by probe would start pretty quickly. I wouldn't list sub-5nm as "far out." We will almost definitely get sub-5nm. AFAIK 3nm is in the pipeline. Sub-1nm is "far out" and may or may not happen.
• MobiusHorizons 5y ago
  I would argue that most of the items on this list can be subdivided into two types of hype. short term hype (real advances that will happen in 1-2 years, but won't matter by 2030, because they are just a generational iteration) Over-hyped far-future research. (things where the possibilities have yet to be brought down to earth by the practical limits of implementing them broadly / cost effectively) When these things do happen, they tend to be a bit of a let-down, because they don't actually provide the promised revolutionary changes. These things basically have to be over-hyped in order to get the necessary funding to bring them to reality. Of the examples you have, I am only really excited about CRISPR, and to a lesser extent commercial spaceflight, and new nuclear. These have promise IMO, but I also don't expect them to be decade defining. Personally I don't think we know what the next breakthrough will be yet. I expect it to take us very much by surprise, and start out as something unthreatening which then grows to a disruptive size / scale.
  • RivieraKid 5y ago
    Interesting, I think all of those items have a good chance of actually happening ("longevity research" happening means some sort of meaningful progress). I hope there will be some unexpected breakthroughs too.
    • sxv 5y ago
      As someone in their 30s who suffers from baldness and arthritis, two simple conditions yet no promising solutions in sight, I find it cute when people think we can somehow cheat death or aging in the next 300 years.
• FridayoLeary 5y ago
  I hate to tell you, but your list looks like it came straight out of the 1970's:) - Spaceflight (SpaceX Starship). - Supersonic airplanes (Boom). Been there, done that.
  • wongarsu 5y ago
    They are modern takes on the Space Shuttle and Concorde respectively, but with the benefit of hindsight as well as half a century of advances in material science and control systems. But really the defining feature is that the Space Shuttle and Concorde were government-funded prestige projects, while their modern incarnations are economically viable.
• javajosh 5y ago
  Don't forget carbon sequestration and geoengineering. I think longevity research is a path to stagnation, and ultimately counter-productive, and should cease. If science advances one funeral at a time, then longevity is counterproductive for all other progress.
  • dane-pgp 5y ago
    So you have chosen death. There are reasons to worry about the ethics of longevity research (especially if the benefits of it are not justly shared), but I don't think you can justify withholding life-improving medical treatment from people just because you want to help science by letting people die early. That sort of thinking is how we get Logan's Run.
    • javajosh 5y ago
      It's dishonest to characterize what I'm saying as "choosing death", as if I've got a nihilistic urge to nuke the planet. Death, birth, and renewal is part of the entire biosphere which has been existed for billions of years. The cells that defy death are called "cancer". The messiness with which humans come into being and then pass away again is NOT something to be engineered away - it is something to experience and learn to appreciate. The thing that lives on, that can be effectively immortal (if we choose to protect it) is the biosphere in which we're embedded and, to a lesser extent, the nest of symbols humans have fashioned for themselves over the last few millenia. It is fascinating to imagine what it would be like to live through human history; however it is terrifying to imagine what the "great men" of history would have done or become if not cut down by time. The inevitability of death has surely stopped some great things from being done, but I'm equally sure it has stopped even worse things from being done - imagine human history if the Pharoahs of Egypt had had access to immortality! It's too horrible to imagine. BTW the Logan's Run system was purely about maintaining homeostasis given limited resources, NOT about maintaining (or even enhancing) dynamism in the population by decreasing average life-span. In other words, unrelated.
      • dane-pgp 5y ago
• csee 5y ago
  - Crypto - Unfortunately, even less local computing, with everything provisioned from the cloud under a SaaS payment model. - More mRNA applications - Power/energy networks and markets across borders. - Theranos, but legitimate. Better, cheaper and more convenient early monitoring/diagnostics for vitamin deficiencies and early stages of disease. - Carbon neutral combustible fuels. - Cheaper grid-scale storage. - Better understanding of the gut-brain connection.
• avidphantasm 5y ago
  mRNA-based therapies?
• m0zg 5y ago
  Half of these are on their way into "valley of disillusionment" before they become generally useful, though perhaps not as grandiose as originally promised. And longevity research is not even a real need - we already live too long as it is, from the evolutionary and economic standpoint. I'd much rather someone came up with a way to cheaply and painlessly end one's life once quality of life begins to deteriorate due to chronic disease and such. Some kind of company (and legislative framework) where you pay, say $1K and they put you into a nitrogen chamber and then cremate and flush the ashes down the toilet afterwards. Or perhaps use them as fertilizer. I'd use the service myself at some point in distant future.
  • samus 5y ago
    The How is not the issue. A combination of various drugs or an opiate overdose should do the trick. It's already legal in Switzerland, Canada, and Belgium. Voluntary euthanasia is ultimately challenging because of similar legal issues as with the death penalty - it cannot be undone, and there are forces in society that can lead individuals to use it for other reasons than just being over and done with suffering through old age.
    • m0zg 5y ago
      That's the point. As long as I'm lucid I should have full bodily autonomy, including the decision to shuffle off this mortal coil. In fact I already have control over this decision. > and there are forces in society So? You're going to tell me I can't go anytime I want to? That's not the case even now. It's just that now I'd have to procure the nitrogen myself (which isn't difficult), and my relatives would have to deal with the body. I'm merely suggesting a service that resolves this purely logistical complication, and excludes the possibility of not quite dying but living the rest of one's life as a vegetable. Think of what we have now: people spend years, sometimes decades suffering from chronic diseases, or just plain not having anything or anyone to live for. And it'll get worse as medicine "improves", and lifespans "improve" with it. Is it humane to withhold the option to end it all from them? I don't think it is. I will grant you that there are likely tens of millions of such people on the planet right now. I will also grant that this is not an uncontroversial thing to suggest. But the alternative we have now doesn't seem any more humane or dignified to me. If this still doesn't sit right with people, we could age and condition-restrict it, or require a long waiting period for when this is not related to acute incurable disease. > as with the death penalty Which is also inhumane, IMO. It's much worse to spend the rest of one's days in confinement instead of 30 seconds until barbiturates kick in. That's what the sadists who are against the death penalty are counting on.
• richardw 5y ago
  Non animal food. Will transform land use. Remote education. Available to any kid or adult anywhere.
  • javajosh 5y ago
    I think we're learning the limits of screen-based education now. There's something about being in the same room with a person at a chalkboard that is far more effective - at least anecdotally. (I'd be surprised if there wasn't research backing this up). And this seems deeply unfortunate if true, because it means the cost of learning can't go all the way to the ground.
    • richardw 5y ago
      Two thoughts: Africa can’t afford in-person teachers. The ones in my country are not great on average. I couldn’t learn maths in class. Too distracted, too annoyed with stupid questions. But I increased 3 symbols in 3 school terms with a slide projector and audio tape, where I could focus and rewind. Teacher there was for bits I didn’t learn from the slides. I’m probably in the minority but I’m sure there are more of me. Digital education catches kids like me and kids who have no access to excellent educators. And marginal cost is zero, so no harm in giving access to the world.